I believed that the weight of evidence did indeed show that human activity was contributing to warming. And that the peer review process - over time - would catch errors of this type (well, they did; sorta').

A panel that combines a bunch of predictions can't possibly be scientific. Science is supposed to make predictions from theories and use the outcome of those predictions to see how well the theories hold up.

If you stop at making predictions you are not doing science, you are engaging in magical thinking.

There were plenty of reasons to be skeptical going back a number of years, but even for the nonscientist the use of the word "settled" should have ended the illusion. Throw in Al Gore and how could anyone have taken it hook, line and sinker?

The embattled SEC, fresh from its overlooking Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme has issued an interpretive guidance on existing SEC disclosure requirements as they apply to business or legal developments relating to the issue of climate change.

http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-15.htm

As if we needed further proof that AGW, OOPS, Climate Change is just another way to get control over people by the Obama Administration. An Administration of “smart” people who are less interested in Science 101 or Economics 101 than in their guilty consciences about capitalism & development & haves & have nots. Their thinking of course being something to the effect that if the haves (except themselves) are made by government fiat to give up things, the have nots will get more.

Gee, I thought that the most important purpose of the SEC re all the paper shuffling was the prevention of corporate misstatements. And with a goldilocks’ approach: not too optimistic & not too pessimistic.

“What?” you say: the AGW science is uncertain & the scientific pronouncements have been proven fraudulent, fraud being the very word that the SEC is in business to stop from happening in corporate documents? Nevermind!

From the Guidance:

"Indirect Consequences of Regulation or Business Trends: Legal, technological, political and scientific developments regarding climate change may create new opportunities or risks for companies. For instance, a company may face decreased demand for goods that produce significant greenhouse gas emissions or increased demand for goods that result in lower emissions than competing products. As such, a company should consider, for disclosure purposes, the actual or potential indirect consequences it may face due to climate change related regulatory or business trends."

So MacDonald’s must now say that there is a scientific consensus (whatever that means) that all its outlets in Manhattan, except in Washington Heights might soon be, er, under water, which would cost it a lot of bucks?

And Northface must warn us that if we have that expected warm winter due to the predictions of the discredited calamitologists it might have lower sales & earnings?

Big Brother alert! Tort lawyers alert!

And, again, the SEC kinda sorta, ya know missed the Bernie Madoff thingy & a few things like that that the ordinary investor expects them to oversee. (They confused oversight & overlooking!) And so you guys may be asking whether the SEC has time for airy-fairy nonsense like this. Shame on you.

Look, The Anointed Ώne is having trouble getting Cap ‘n Trade & you’re just being obstructionist here. He’s gonna get around the messy Democratic process of Congress & have his czars or administrators do the job that all good men, OOPS, persons know has to be done since he, as a Constitutional Scholar, thinks that We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal….

We could make a pretty good scientist out of you if you kept that mindset up!

Evidence may definitively show that humans contribute to global warming. Faking data to improve the chances of a hoped for conclusion being believed is not the right way to go about science though. There may be other theories, better able to make predictions, that we wont be able to come up with now because the underlying data has been destroyed or called into question.

And even if human do contribute to global warming, lots of other issues haven't really been thought out. We don't know if global warming is necessarily bad, if it's preventing an ice age, or if our resources would be better spent trying to adapt to it rather than stop it.

Yup. Its a cop out, because no one can ever know whats in another's heart. You're expected to excuse their corruption because they claim it was all for a good cause.

They should not be allowed to escape Judgement.

Faking data to improve the chances of a hoped for conclusion being believed is not the right way to go about science though. There may be other theories, better able to make predictions, that we wont be able to come up with now because the underlying data has been destroyed or called into question.

And the obvious question: how could anyone with "good intentions" deliberately taint and destroy research meant to "save" the planet?

The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 shared by The IPCC and Al Gore "For their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change"

I'm so dam glad Big Al and the IPCC are here to protect us all from ourselves.

Who are you characterizing here, gm? Are you saying that such a hoax is really trivial after all and that we should just ignore it? That is how I interpret what you are saying--now that the AGW panic promulgated by those of an exclusively liberal bent has been shown to be a plot foisted on the world by liars and fools, that all of us who have been pointing out the falsity of their arguments for years should be branded as weak minded hysterics. Boy, talk about blinkered pig-ignorance.

I've never understood this need to produce reports. The farther you get from the original paper, the less sense you have. It's like scientists playing Whisper Down the Alley with a bunch of non-scientists thrown in the line.

Then you don't understand what the IPCC is all about. The IPCC's agenda is political, not scientific. The politicians and bureaucrats need a big, thick report with lots of big words in it to explain why they need to take more of your money and more of your freedom so they they can save the planet. They really couldn't care less about the validity of data in the report, it is just a means to an end.

Ha! This is so fucking funny. All you Rightists were just fine - just fine! - mixing belief and science when it was about Texas schoolbooks. And now you bitch and moan about the Leftists bringing their Climatism religion to the political arena??! If Creationism must be in public school textbooks, why can't rainforest bullshit be in global climate reports? What did you think - that the Leftists wouldn't try to get their God in the door too?

@damikesc- AGW is worse than Creationism. I am totally aghast at the unscientific religiousness that is behind it, and that's behind things like the COP15 conference. Maybe there is a part of it that is real but it is being blown up far out of proportion due to the tendency of the Left to worship Green as their new God.

Scientists fear the controversies will be used by climate change sceptics to sway public opinion to ignore global warming — even though the fundamental science, that greenhouse gases can heat the world, remains strong.

"Can" does not mean "will". But then the consensus experts and their media lackeys are learning not to overpromise. The hard way.

John Tierney of the NY Times has pointed out (repeatedly) that, so the belief goes, scientists are corrupted by grants or funding by corporations but not corrupted by money from government.

John Tierney is missing the big picture if he thinks Corruption is just about money.

"....is merely one of a hundred Rings... only one form of the longing to be inside.

People who believe themselves to be free, and indeed are free, from snobbery, and who read satires on snobbery with tranquil superiority, may be devoured by the desire in another form.

It may be the very intensity of their desire to enter some quite different Ring which renders them immune from all the allurements of high life. An invitation from a duchess would be very cold comfort to a man smarting under the sense of exclusion from some artistic or communistic côterie. Poor man- it is not large, lighted rooms, or champagne, or even scandals about peers and Cabinet Ministers that he wants: it is the sacred little attic or studio, the heads bent together, the fog of tobacco smoke, and the delicious knowledge that we- we four or five all huddled beside this stove- are the people who know." - C. S. Lewis, The Inner Ring

The Question that follows the revelation of the total scam job claiming that Global Warming is caused by CO2 from the developed world hypothesis is the following: How dumb can one man be that he never once doubted it and is still doing political theater performances saying that he SINCERELY believes in it to the extent that he must destroy American industry, along with that great friend of America named Osama Bin Laden.

And don't get me started about textbooks. The textbook publishers refused to add the word "theory" to their paean to AGW.

And they control the game & make the rules, not the deceased rubes from Texas.

See, e.g.,

"Among other things, those [text]books were criticized ...for saying there was scientific consensus that global warming was changing the earth's climate...[&]for saying there was scientific consensus that global warming was changing the earth's climate...

"The [yahoos] also succeeded in having this sentence deleted: "Most experts on global warming feel that immediate action should be taken to curb global warming."

Keep the solar panels. All the industrial pollution and energy cost of their manufacture is already spent, so you might as well use them.

And the same things that were true before are true now. Actively working to reduce pollution (accepting that CO2 is not a pollutant) and to preserve the environment and take care of our environment is still a necessary thing. It's much nicer having clean air to breathe and neighborhoods that are green and shaded and clean. It's nicer to have road ditches full of flowers instead of ones sprayed with broad leaf herbicides. It's nicer to see that the bald eagles and osprey have returned.

Taking care of nature is one reason that we should insist on exploiting our domestic sources of oil and gas as much as we can because we can monitor and control the environmental impact in our own territories where we simply can't do that for foreign sources.

And we should aggressively pursue new nuclear technology and development for the same reasons.

Most of all, we should stop letting those with an anti technology and anti West political agenda use scare tactics to hijack the issue.

All you Rightists were just fine - just fine! - mixing belief and science when it was about Texas schoolbooks. And now you bitch and moan about the Leftists bringing their Climatism religion to the political arena??!

The big difference is that Texas elected its school board members, agree with them or not, to decide issues like what to put in Texas textbooks. Comparing them to an unelected U.N. climate panel whose reports have already affected most of the civilized world is ludicrous. If you don't like what Texas does, live in one of the other 49 states, but the IPCC is a horse of a different color, it affects us all.

AGW is worse than Creationism. I am totally aghast at the unscientific religiousness that is behind it, and that's behind things like the COP15 conference. Maybe there is a part of it that is real but it is being blown up far out of proportion due to the tendency of the Left to worship Green as their new God.

There's a great op-ed on this very subject in my local paper today (it leads with the author recounting the story of his being chastised by his six-year-old son for leaving the water on while brushing his teeth; yay public schools!). Here's a key paragraph:

"[E]nvironmentalism, like every other ism, has the potential for dogmatic zeal and obsession. Do we really need one more humorless religion? Let us save the planet, by all means. But let's also admit to ourselves that we have a natural propensity toward guilt and indignation, and let that fact temper our fervor to more reasonable levels."

"Ha! This is so fucking funny. All you Rightists were just fine - just fine! - mixing belief and science when it was about Texas schoolbooks. And now you bitch and moan about the Leftists bringing their Climatism religion to the political arena??! If Creationism must be in public school textbooks, why can't rainforest bullshit be in global climate reports? What did you think - that the Leftists wouldn't try to get their God in the door too?"

I have never merged science and religion, so you are wrong about "all."

In addition, the lefties were purporting to have all the science on their side. It wasn't an issue of wanting religion and science looked at at the same time or a preference of religion to science. With the AGW folks they allowed a religious attitude about science to corrupt and displace science. That is plainly different. If they had embraced ecology as a religion and not portrayed it as science, they would not have acquired the political and economic power they got.

Ha! This is so fucking funny. All you Rightists were just fine - just fine! - mixing belief and science when it was about Texas schoolbooks. And now you bitch and moan about the Leftists bringing their Climatism religion to the political arena??! If Creationism must be in public school textbooks, why can't rainforest bullshit be in global climate reports? What did you think - that the Leftists wouldn't try to get their God in the door too?

I think that's a great talking point for the climate alarmists. You should send this to Al Gore. I strongly urge him to use it. It'll shut his critics right up.

The Nobel people knew Man Made Global Warming AKA Man Made Climate change was a hoax, a fraud, and a scam. That is why they gave Al Gore Inc. the Peace Prize instead of one of the coveted science prizes. The Peace Prize is political. The science prizes require proof.

In addition, the lefties were purporting to have all the science on their side. It wasn't an issue of wanting religion and science looked at at the same time or a preference of religion to science. With the AGW folks they allowed a religious attitude about science to corrupt and displace science. That is plainly different. If they had embraced ecology as a religion and not portrayed it as science, they would not have acquired the political and economic power they got.

You could look at it that way. But you could also say that the Left is just playing the same game that the Religious Right is. After all, given the chance, wouldn't the Religious Right take an opportunity to use their religion to gain political and economic power? Perhaps the Left is just better at the power-politics game than the Right is. If so, that's all the more reason for the Right to take an active, vocal stance in keeping religion completely out of politics.

Instead of spending tax dollars reducing non-existent substances- greenhouse gases, we, the people, should demand a total reduction on political gasbaggery.

Gasbaggery has harmed more real humans than any other substance known to man. It is an environmental disaster. It pollutes the mind and the soul. Gasbaggery is holding the Earth in inbalance and postulates inconvenient truths.

What should be the penalty for espousing a total ignorance that says "I just believe settled science"? Do these nice people get to be our leaders for the next round of Jeopardy threats with which they want to see us attacked? NO, we need to scratch them off the list of acceptable candidates forever. Treat them as assassins of the USA, which is what they really are.

Al Gore announced today that his venture capital firms will be financing expeditions to prove once and for all that Global warming is real and a severe crisis.

He has gathered together famous mercenary adventurers Indiana Jones, Clutch Cargo, and Jungle Jim to put together the expeditions. The expeditions will travel through the worlds jungles and deserts in search of the elusive Carbon Footprint.

Mr. Gore firmly believes if the Carbon Footprint is found it will prove that man made global warming exists. He is dedicating 5 billion dollars towards this effort. Mr. Gore hopes this effort will finally put to rest rumors that Global Warming and Man Made Climate Change is a hoax.

1) The total amont of warming, from the coldest low to the warmest high over the past 130 years is about 0.7 degrees (IPCC, NOAA, NASA other sources)

2) What is the accuracy of the measurements? I have never been able to find out but suspect that it is greater than +/- 1 degree

3) In the US, according to NASA, speaking about their own temperature stations, only about 15% are accurate to within a degree. A large number, 20-30% are classified as CLass 5 which means that they may be reading as much as 5 degrees hotter than it really is.

Global warming is a hoax and a scam. There is as much evidence of global cooling from the temperature data as there is of global warming.

In other words, the temperature data is worthless. It is just as likely to off on the low as on the high side.

I know that the notion that the religious sorts are out to gain political power... that impending theocracy... is something of a romantic notion, but it really isn't a given, a truism...

Even Islam is fragmented, and that is still the best example we have in the world today. Catholicism is organized and global, but well settled into a separate hierarchy than secular governments. The rest? No one would want to give someone else power over them.

The separation of church and state in the US wasn't about keeping government secular, after all, but about keeping some Christians from having power over other Christians.

As romantic as the notion is (in the sense that people are drawn to the fantasy because it is dramatic and shiver-inducing) it is really wrong to assume that religions are automatically seeking political or economic primacy.

The sort of politics and economic belief systems that have made climate change their vanguard (and invited Chavez and Mugabe to speak at Copenhagen) really are about the politics and economics first and foremost.

If we took all money wasted on research, reporting, crying, movie making, book writing, ink, trees and Oscars, we could fill all the potholes in all the roads in this country...with caviar...and that would make more sense.

[The public] Really? Well, what it is it? Are we doomed? Will the caps melt? Will polar bear sink and die? Will water vapor finally be called a pollutant? Will the glaciers melt? Please tell us, you are our only hope.

MadisonMan said... That's why you should look at different types of data -- unrelated to thermometers. Lake Ice season length, for example. How has that changed in the past 100-150 years? Or first/last frost dates.

Here's info from an area lake on when the lake is ice free. Sorry, about the sequence, I did a copy/paste from a PDF.

I see that some years spring comes early, and other years spring comes late. That's what it tells me, and that's what I've always thought.

I used to farm. Some years there's hardly any rain in June, July and the hay crop suffers. There have been other years that I couldn't put up any hay without it getting rained on, thereby diminishing its quality.